Was that a flicker of contempt in those fine blue eyes? “No, Mrs. Hurst, I am not of that ilk. When my friends have their private trials and tribulations, I stay mum. As,” he continued blandly, “I am positive you will too.”
“Of course,” said Louisa.
“Of course,” said Caroline.
Mr. Sinclair prepared to move on. “What a pity we cannot hope for universal silence.” he said.
“A shocking pity,” Louisa said. “The Derbyshires.”
“I concur,” said Caroline. “The Speaker of the House.”
And your own two viperish tongues, thought Angus as he tipped his hat in farewell.
He was meeting Fitz at the stables, but before he got there Charlie waylaid him, very cast down because he had to stay home.
“Are you available for a long ride on Monday?” Charlie asked. “Owen and I are for Nottingham. Best pack a change of raiment in your saddle bags in case we are delayed.”
Angus promised, then walked off.
Mary’s disappearance frightened him more than he had let anyone suspect; she was such a mixture of sheltered innocence and second-hand cynicism that, like a cannon loosed on the deck of a first-rater, she could go off in any direction, wreaking indiscriminate havoc. If she had adhered to her schedule, she ought to be in Derbyshire by now, so why wasn’t she? Love, reflected Angus, is the very devil. Here I am in a lather of worry, while she is probably snug in some inn fifty miles south taking copious notes on farmers and the evils of enclosing common land. No, she is not! Mary is a stickler for being in the correct place at the correct time. Oh, my love, my love, where
“Mr. Sinclair?”
He turned to see Edward Skinner approaching, and frowned. An interesting fellow, deep in Fitz’s confidence-a fact he had always known, yet somehow on this visit that fact was reinforced. Perhaps thanks to Mary and Lydia? Not an ill-looking man, if your tastes ran to massiveness and swarthiness. His eyes bore the same cool detachment as Fitz’s, yet he was too old to be Fitz’s by-blow-nearing forty, was Angus’s guess.
“Yes, Mr. Skinner?” he asked, giving Ned his due.
“Message from Mr. Darcy. He can’t bear you company today.”
“Oh, too bad!” Angus stood still for a moment, then nodded to himself. “Well, no matter. I feel like a gallop to blow the cobwebs away, so I’ll ride alone. Would you tell Mrs. Darcy that I will be back in time for dinner?”
“Certainly.”
A vain hope, that he could do anything significant in the time; it was already noon when Angus set out for Chesterfield, which he didn’t reach. His horse cast a shoe, he was obliged to seek a blacksmith, and all he had for his pains was a headache from facing the setting sun as he returned.
“I know your mind is occupied with Mrs. Wickham,” he said to Elizabeth before dinner, “but I am more perturbed about Mary. I never met a person more meticulous, more addicted to the minutiae of timetables and schedules than Mary, yet she has disappeared in spite of informing me how she meant to go.”
“I think you dwell upon it too much, Angus,” Elizabeth said, her mind indeed preoccupied with hideous thoughts about Lydia. “Give Mary two or three more days, and she’ll emerge from her hiding place unaware that she has caused consternation. She was ever thus, you know. Her meticulousness was usually to do with mere trivia, and her concentration upon the timing of events was not sensible. Life always surprised her, however hard she tried to strip it of its astonishments.”
“You do not know her!” he said in tones of wonder.
She flushed, annoyed at his reaction. “She is my sister, sir. I do know her, and better than you.”
He lifted his brows, leaving them to say without words that he did not agree, but Parmenter’s announcing dinner saved them from a serious falling out.
On Monday, Angus, Charlie and Owen started for Nottingham shortly after seven, determined that they were going to find out whether Mary had been seen there. It was a logical place for one going north from Hertford to Manchester, given the stage-coach routes. If Huckstep the horse master was puzzled when they chose strong, steady horses rather than the goers Mr. Charlie always rode, he knew better than to ask. Embarrassed that Mr. Sinclair’s last mount had cast a shoe, he made sure that would not happen today.
The distance from Pemberley to Nottingham was about fifty miles; by riding conservatively they hoped to reach the town in four or five hours without exhausting their steeds, though, said Charlie, “I warned Mama that we may not be back tonight. We are hot on the heels of the notorious Sheriff of Nottingham of Robin Hood’s day, and may choose to spend the afternoon quizzing the locals.”
“What
“Myths and legends, among other airy-fairy things. Was it not so at Edinburgh?”
“Very sedate, very down-to-earth. Is there a decent inn at Nottingham?”
“The Black Cat,” said Charlie, who knew the country north of Birmingham intimately.
Their horses having held up very well, they reached Nottingham at noon, and ate luncheon at the Black Cat before setting out for the coach station posting house on foot.
And finally, news!
“Yes, sirs, I remember the lady,” said Mr. Hooper, manager of the stage-coach company in Nottingham. “She come in from Grantham last Thursday-one of them unfortunate journeys, I gather. Five louts shared the cabin with her, and I can imagine what a time she had of it! I was busy when the Grantham stage come in, but I run a decent sort of establishment here, and that were a coachload of bad trouble-them on the top were drunk and brawling. In fact, I sacked Jim Pickett the coachman for not running things shipshape. Threw the lady’s bags in the dung pile. Hard to find coachmen that don’t drink, and Jim drank. Well, he’ll have no more rums on me!”
The three men listened in growing horror, but when Charlie would have interrupted the flow, Angus trod on his foot.
“Seems the lady wouldn’t have nothing to do with them five louts,” Mr. Hooper went on, hardly drawing a breath. “So they got their own backs, they did. Tripped her when she was getting out-flat in the muck she went, poor lady! Knocked the wind clear out of her. Ruined her coat and dress-horse piss. I was told a man helped her up, dusted her off. But the muck ain’t prone to be fixed by a dust-off. Her reticule went flying, but she got it back, and the man put her gold guineas back into it too. I only saw her a-going out of the yard-a regular mess.”
Charlie’s face was a study in grief; he gulped, held onto Owen’s sleeve. “The curs!” he cried, almost in tears. “I-I cannot credit it! Five men picking on a defenceless woman in a public stage-coach? Wait until my father hears! There will be hell to pay from the highest to the lowest!”
A look of acute apprehension on Mr. Hooper’s face did not bode well for further information; Angus trod on Charlie’s foot again. “Was that the last time you saw her, sir?” Angus asked “No. She come back at seven next morning-I were busy again, always am busy. London don’t give me enough help, expect the whole thing to run like clockwork. Well, it don’t.” He fulminated for a moment, then returned to his tale. “Two stages. One bound for Derby, one for Sheffield. The lady got on the Sheffield coach and away she went. Looked fairly tuckered, she did. No coat, new dress, but it weren’t no great shakes, and Len told me she stank of horse piss. Still, sir, she had gold in her reticule. Daresay she’ll be right and tight.”
A groan wrenched itself out of Charlie. “Sheffield! Oh, Mary, why Sheffield?”
“Something must have drawn her there,” said Owen, trying to see the bright side. “A factory she heard of, perhaps?”
“So tomorrow we’re for Sheffield,” said Angus with a sigh. He dropped a guinea in the manager’s hand. “Thank you, sir. You’ve been a great help.”
Eyes round at the sight of the coin, Mr. Hooper closed his fist on it; by the time he recovered his breath, the three gentlemen-terrific swells!-were walking away.
“Here!” he called after them, the guinea working magic on his memory. “Don’t you want to know the rest, good sirs?”
They stopped in their tracks.
“The rest?” from Angus.
“Yes, the rest. My coachman told me yesterday. The lady got off in Mansfield. Turns out she thought she were on the Derby stage, not the Sheffield stage. My man had to charge her for the fare from Nottingham to Mansfield- sixpence-then went on to Sheffield without her. Last he saw of her, she were going into the Friar Tuck. Looking for transport to Chesterfield.”
